I really am trying not to laugh.
Full disclosure: I have worked with, and quite like, several people at this PR firm.
Side note: Raise your hands if you thought a PR firm was supposed to do anything BESIDES generate positive buzz for their clients. Lordy. What a non-issue this is. Even if it’s not a typo, and the PR kids were going to get bonuses for actual positive reviews, I still refuse to clench my underpants up to my lungs in angst. A positive review, even from a perfectly honest journalist, is often a function of the environment in which they reviewed the product. The PR firm that places a pre-armored, pre-buffed character on an account (and possibly arranges to have an actual developer helping the reviewer over the rough spots) is merely being proactive. ESPECIALLY with MMOs, which are impossible to review in two hours. Don’t like it? Make sure you only read reviews by someone who played through the whole beta in their own basement instead of playing for two hours at a press event. Caveat emptor.
Good points.
And the typo thing doesnt even help this imaginary problem when you think about it – if dishonest reviews were an issue then dishonest previews are wrong too.
Most dishonesty in journalism is born of the journalist, not of the PR people. Yeah, they do highlight all the good points of a product. If they didn’t, they should be fired. I know Sean and he’s an excellent PR guy, and I’ve known him on both sides of the fence. When I was a fansite type, he surely showed games in a positive light and he was a great guy to hang out with, but he never once asked or told me to write anything positively.
Course they’re hired to do PR for a game because reviews are better with their work than without, otherwise what the heck are they doing?
But an admission of that would be used out of context by those who have made up their minds that foul-play was afoot and misdeeds were committed in this particular case.
It’s difficult when accused of doing a thing to an unethical degree to defend oneself with an admission of doing that very thing, but only within ethical boundaries.
Those who accuse you will rarely be honest in their presentation of your admission, and more and more people seem to be of the “zero tolerance”-sort of mind-set, anyway.
If too much of a thing is bad, then any amount of it must surely be just as wicked.